In order to minimize, and hopefully prevent, the occurrence of a potentially damaging electrostatic discharge between an electronic circuit component and various contact locations along its travel path through a component handling (test) apparatus, it is customary practice to provide ground connections to all parts of the apparatus that make direct contact with the part. Such ground connections are diagrammatically illustrated in FIG. 1 as comprising one or more conductive straps or cables 11 that physically and electrically join various locations 12 along the travel path 13 of parts 14 through the handler 15 and a relatively `robust` ground reference, such as the metallic framework 16 of the handler. The handler itself may also be externally connected to earth ground 17 in order to ensure proper grounding of its internal framework.
Unfortunately, even with the provision of such grounding connections, over time, physical motion and vibration that occur during the use of the parts handler can be expected to impact the integrity of the ground at one or more locations along the travel path. One way to address this problem would be to periodically (e.g. daily) open up the handler so as to gain access to and manually check the entirety of the part travel path for grounding anomalies. However, even with this approach, should the ground then degrade, the earliest the problem might be discovered would not be until the next check interval (e.g. the next day). In the meantime, all parts processed by the handler during the previous day would be suspect as potentially defective.